


There Is Always A Monster

by broadside



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Day drinking, Gen, and these are immortal pirates, because they finally got immortality, definite alcohol use, did i mention they're immortal?, i mean it's the 70s, i should update these as i add on instead of assuming, mentions of serial murder, probable violence ahead, probably drug use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4854608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadside/pseuds/broadside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1977 and two pirates who found immortality in the 18th Century are still scheming and tromping across the world like they're owed it, ship or no ship.  Running concurrent to the terror unleashed by the Hillside Stranglers in the city of Los Angeles.  You can take the man out of traditional piracy, but piracy is in the blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Is Always A Monster

**Author's Note:**

> I originally was going to leave this as just word vomit about a version of Hector I rp, but when I sat and looked at it, I realized there's a plot hiding under there somewhere, so I'm going to give a multi-chaptered thing a shot.
> 
> Though it's not actually written with the intention of being so, could probably vaguely be seen as Jack/Hector if you squint at it sideways.

There will always be a monster. 

There will always be a boogieman in the closet or under the bed, a shadow in the alleyway and a demon in the woods. It's something that, in the last twenty-five years or so, the world seems to have forgotten, after the war. 

The term "serial killer" will not be in the common vernacular for another ten years or so, but such creatures have always existed. They had existed in his time, when the New World was still exactly that, and some were pirates. Some were Navymen. Some common butchers and doctors and all manner of professions in between, because monsters can wear human faces.

He knows. He was one once. Not of their kind, no, but a monster all the same.

And they'd existed before his time. Would likely always exist, though in all his years tramping this earth, he can't remember a place or time so fertile a breeding ground for them as here, and as now. He's not entirely sure what's caused it - whether it's the history of bloodshed this land has seen or something left over from the war that goes beyond the atomic bomb and the ongoing Cold War or some kind of government experiment, all the way down to a curse, perhaps, because he's not one to dismiss such things right out of hand. But this decade has seen many of them, most of them still roaming free, because it's hard to catch a wolf when the illusion of sheep's clothing is so complete.

It's a funny time to be alive, really. On the one hand, women are fighting in the trenches of equality, to get their equal due. Kids hitchhike from one end of the country to the other with a sort of naivete he's never known, trusting in the kindness of strangers that they won't end up dead, dumped on the side of the road. With the exception of disco, perhaps, the music of this era isn't ungodly awful. Despite the public stigma, drugs out of Mexico and South America are literally everywhere, and everyone has some kind of vice, but there's a feel-good vibe surrounding it. It's a holdover from the decade before, though now there's almost something frantic about it, in his opinion.

And he can't say he has much in the way of complaints with the way pretty young things of this era wander about in low slung pants or short, short skirts and shorts, with their cropped halter tops revealing so much and so little at the same time. If nothing else, there is certainly plenty to keep the eye wandering. He knows there were whores in Tortuga that would have been _scandalized_ at how innocent little things dress now, and it amuses him.

But the other hand has a much darker feel. Slasher flicks are coming into vogue, a darker turn from the horror movies of the past; these new mutations containing monsters that are all too human, in comparison to the Wolfman and Dracula. People lock their doors in places they wouldn't have thought to do so five years previously. There are hotbeds of panic, where he can't give a pretty girl a passing smile and have her not give him the most suspicious of looks before finding sanctity in a gaggle of others, when previously there'd been a certain kind of innocence in that kind of thing.

Texas, California, Wisconsin, Washington, Lousiana. Florida, even. All places where the bodies pile up, and he actually wonders if there's something significant about that, as well (because _Wisconsin_?). Son of Sam, the Zodiac, the Co-Ed Killer. Young couples and college girls and beyond, the victims as varied as the means, and while he's certainly seen it before, and he doubts this will be the end and there will be many more to follow, he's vaguely fascinated by it. Not the how, and not the who, necessarily, but the _why_.

It isn't as if he hasn't killed before. His hands are so bloodstained he couldn't begin to wash them clean, even if he were inclined to contemplate such a thing. But rarely has a killing been personal. In fact, that list is very short and sweet, and one of the people who'd been on it once upon a time is still walking the earth with him. Revenge killing, that he can understand. Killing as a means to an end to get what he wants; he understands that, too. And killing because he's been left with no choice...Well. It happens more often than one would think, even now. None of it has ever actually brought him true joy or release, and instead - especially when it's personal for him - it's a sort of cold closure. So, in a very abstract way, these particular kinds of murders simply baffle him.

He's in California, to visit with Jack at the other's request, in that fair city of Los Angeles (he hates it here), floating on a breakfast that's consisted of a whiskey neat in a lowball and an apple (because there are vices he won't touch, and vices he will, and that is one that, for him, at least, falls into the acceptable range), on this, Dia de los Muertos - and he's exceedingly relieved Jack's pronunciation of such has improved dramatically over the years. He's taken over the couch, and he doesn't much care what Jack thinks about it, because it's Jack's fault he's even here to begin with, the television on for background noise. He still hasn't mastered the art of sitting still long enough to make his way through more than half an hour of mindless watching.

Sandwiched between Happy Days and the $20,000 Pyramid is a breaking news update, which given the location he finds himself in isn't that shocking, but the content is. He's only vaguely aware of Jack shuffling into the kitchen behind him, only catches a peripheral glimpse of a truly awful dressing robe in the colors that scream the era they're living in, not bothering to look up until it switches to a commercial for televisions. And immediately wishes he hadn't, because that robe is honestly eyebleedingly horrific.

He hears Jack's irritated huff at the empty coffee pot - Hector hadn't bothered with it - before there is some ill-tempered clanking and rustling around as Jack begins pulling things down out of the top cabinets and off the rack of pots for something that resembles actual breakfast, as opposed to Hector's own, obviously less sophisticated one, and there's the sound of percolation as the coffee gets started when he finally gets up from where he'd stretched out over the entire couch, intending on a refill for his long-empty glass.

He purposely ignores the judgey look Jack sends his way, until Jack finally speaks up. "Y'know, mate, for someone that's always had a taste for the finer things in life, you seem to have your priorities all jumbled up."

"Do I." The look Hector gives in return is a bit wide-eyed and challenging, as he opens the refrigerator and retrieves a carton of orange juice. His glass is already half full of the whiskey, so he simply tops it off with the orange juice and gives it a shake, daring Jack silently to say a word. "There. Breakfast of champions. And fine words, coming from a rumsoaked sot what still calls hisself pirate."

Jack gives a snort at that, probably more at the thickness of Hector's accent and the way - over the last week or so - his word usage has gone from distinctly modern to 18th Century pirate, than his actual words. It's something that always happens when they get together, as if they can't help themselves.

Hector takes a swig from the carton and leaves the kitchen then, leaving it behind on the counter, an irritated " _Mate_ " following him into the living room where he takes up his place on the couch once more. He pays it no mind. Once he settles completely, he only answers with, "They found another one."

"Another what." Hector doesn't look back, where he can hear Jack cracking open eggs and dropping them into the frying pan.

"Another one of those dead girls in some neighborhood or another." The first had been found not long before he'd come to California, and had been in the paper he'd picked up on his way to Jack's. And he'd thought then it wouldn't be the last, and he's not exactly surprised.

"Immortality has not been kind to you, Hector." The words filter back over Jack's bustling in the kitchen, and it's almost the funniest thing in the world to Hector. After all, who would have ever seen that development, where Jack Sparrow can put together a meal that's more than halfway decent. "All sorts of macabre fascinations and distractions you've picked up, mate."

There's an underlying insinuation in that, that Hector reads loud and clear. _If I didn't know any better, I'd say the monster you're so fascinated with is yourself._ And Hector supposes, with the history between them, it would be a fair assumption on the fly. It's not an accusation, not really. But it belies a certain uncertainty Jack must have over Hector's state of mental wellbeing, which is nonsense. He perhaps doesn't slot quite as well as Jack does through time, and there have been times where he wonders if he doesn't have a few screws loose himself (he's fairly sure he does), but he figures he's kept up fine enough. And he doesn't actually kill for pleasure, though he certainly feels very little in the way of remorse when he has to. 

But it's not an accusation...He doesn't think. Either way, it would be flatly ridiculous if Jack were actually accusing him of such. He'd been in Louisana when he'd gotten the invitation, a day after the first girl had been found. 

"It's a macabre time, Jack." For all it's bright colors and easy going patina, Jack knows he's not wrong. There's been an upswing in New Age mysticism of the likes that would make Calypso - as Tia Dalma - laugh and laugh, and the party all the time mentality is a cover for a fear of what lurks in the dark. "Every age must have its devil, I suppose this one's found the one it wants to claim."

It's a not-denial of the not-accusation, because in reality, Jack should know better. Aye, they're killers and thieves and scoundrels even now, but there'd never been any stomach for that which doesn't gain him _something_ , and killing little girls that aren't wary enough of the wolf on the way to Grandma's house isn't something in his makeup. There's no pride or honor in such an act.

"I was only saying." Which is the not-accusation being retracted. It's bacon now, loudly sizzling away, and Hector suddenly regrets only having an apple, but like hell he'll say anything. "Can't say as I recall you ever giving it a thought one way or the other before."

"When's it ever been this prominent before." He finishes off the orange juice and whisky mixture (which has been, in all honesty, truly horrible) and places the glass on the coffee table behind him, where he's leaned against pillows and an armrest, picking up the book he'd sat aside when the news update had caught his attention. _The Mauritius Command_ , and while it is most certainly not a comedy, he finds it absolutely hysterical.

There's the ding of the toaster, and more bustling about, and Hector has gotten settled into the book once more, where Captain Aubrey displays a massive amount of brutishness and lack of wonder at the world around him, classifying birds into the categories "edible" and "unedible", when Jack halts before him, dropping a plate unceremoniously on his stomach and depositing a cup of coffee (black, no extras) on the coffee table behind him.

"Prominent or not, you and I have things to do today, and while I'm aware how this sounds coming out of me own mouth, I'd rather you be fed and sober and on your a game, mate. Too risky otherwise." 

Which is to say Hector's decided lack of fucks in being sober will make him an unmanageable wild card that Jack doesn't want to deal with. And Hector will admit, his curiosity is piqued. He doesn't say that, however, sitting up and steadying the plate in his lap, once again setting aside his book with a sigh.

"Does this mean you'll be wearin' actual clothes, then. Because as I live and breathe, I may never get over the trauma that robe has inflicted."

It's answered with a rude, decidedly modern hand gesture, as Jack disappears into the kitchen once more.


End file.
